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ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



CmCIMATI km THE 76 

ASSOCIATION, ^^V^ 

ON THE 4th JULY, 1854, 



Br 
DAVID RAMSAY, 

OF THE CINCINNATI. 



PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETIES. 



CHARLESTON: 
HARPER & CALVO, PRINTERS, 

NO. 32 CHALMERS-STREET. 

1854 



Is Si- 






ORATION. 



The rising tides bear a thousand ships to our 
harbours. Numerous emigrants are sailing hither : 
some have fled from the memories of their home, 
outlaws of liberty ; some have abandoned a science, 
they enlarged ; some seek the scanty charity of 
repentance, or ask but the bare alms of life ; few are 
wanderers, to whom the narrow limits of their fancied 
ark seem other than a larger prison. Land! cries 
the shipboy from his airy perch. Land ! every voice 
echoes. All are here at land. The exodus of hu- 
manity escaping from the ensanguined sea, is arrived 
where thus much is the promise, liberty and law — 
freedom outraging no right, government coercing 
only license. These are hopes which lead on men 
from every clime, results which closed a weary 
course, inaugurating a new epoch with the day when 
for the first time, self-evident truths were successfully 
proclaimed. Their declaration took place at no 



4 ORATION. 

auspicious period. Civilization was reposing after a 
terrible war, from which conquest and rapine had 
emerged victorious. Silesia remained in the grasp 
of the indomitable Frederic; the Crimea was torn 
from the Ottoman ; Poland had been partitioned ; the 
last reverend order was suppressed, which, named in 
the holiest name of man, had confronted kings. But 
speedy retribution followed, a new evangile of state 
was proclaimed, its trumpet sounding from war on 
land and sea. That clarion blare evoked a contest 
not merely between the mother country and her 
revolted colony. Spain armed for the heritage of 
Castile and Leon; France remembered her Hugue- 
nots ; Holland had too long combatted for independ- 
ence to stand neutral. Victory flew before the allied 
banners. A bristling circle contracted around the 
foe standing at bay, and soon the bent sail bore the 
British armies from an unconquerable land, left to its 
own fates and freedom. 

Ever since, that land has had its eleutheria checked 
with somewhat of the paschal solemnity, befitting 
progression. The day is truly more honourable, 
whose celebration looks not altogether backward ; for 
anniversaries, when not significant of advance, are 
requiems over a people buried in story, even before 
resolved into oblivion. On the contrary, every real 
anniversary forms that indistinct boundary of the 
present, melting on either hand. Surmounted trials 
with patriotic expectations render it visible and 



ORATION. 5 

radiant, as the glowing line arched in air is drawn 
on the storm, but lit up by beams of a serener day. 
Thus from experience and hope are gathered feelings 
which constitute the celebration of national holidays. 
A continuity of state is then exhibited, from which 
the national character and tendency can be deter- 
mined by a comparison of each advance with the 
direction of all. There is purpose in such view of 
progress. It seems to be the teaching of the past, 
that certain tasks are ordained unto nations. To the 
Jewish stem, we owe religion ; to the Grecian, art ; 
to the Roman, law. A reverent parallel of these 
results may be drawn, widely apart as they are. 
Belief has not ceased to do homage to the Jewish 
scripture ; intelligence thrills in the contemplation of 
the embalmed beauty of Grecian mind, and judgment, 
seeking justice, finds it in the written reason of the 
Roman jurisprudence. 

A corollary of this appointment appears in the fact 
that each nation passed not away, until its task was 
completely done. In Greece, when the eloquent 
tongue was mute, and the exquisite sense dulled, 
then the truculent Moslem supplanted the last Con- 
stantino. So also when the pandectic equity of 
unrivalled jurists was ordered, the high call was 
answered, and beneath the tramp of the Hun's war- 
horse, Italy faded and withered. The same conclu- 
sion terminates the noblest mission vouchsafed to 
man. When the things were come to pass which 



6 ORATION. 

prophets, judges, and kings had transmitted, the 
Hebrew's task was done, but thenceforth he becomes 
an exile. It is, however, by no means at the conclu- 
sion of a career, that the moral is to be discovered. 
The surest test is retrospective lying in the people's 
consciousness. In attempting to formularise social 
phenomena, we immediately perceive that every es- 
sential truth of intellectual development received its 
impetus at a very early age. Certainly in the larger 
achievements can an original be traced to distant 
periods. Take law : the broad universal Right is as 
old as Man. We have derived it through Gothic 
channels from one source ; yet in the very reservoir 
from which we draw, currents mingle that can be 
explored far higher. Greece appears through the 
myth of the twelve tables the coadjutrix of Latin 
legislation, but her own assessors are replete with 
Egyptian learning ; and even on the banks of the 
sage Nile, there are memorials guiding us to the 
awful verge of Sinai. As in law, so in art. Modern 
and mediseval schools avow their studies of the same 
immortal masterpieces, but for 'the models of these 
we may not linger in Greece. Its perfection is only 
a repeated lesson, while the very academic stronghold 
is decorated with captures from the mystic lore of 
India, and the remoter Asia. This anticipation fails 
to be recognized in the highest result permitted to 
instrumentalities of divine Foresight, only still less. 
Read every creed with an enlightened eye. It is 



ORATION. 7 

truth disguised. The gloomy fables of the nursery 
of our race recounted eternal verities : the poorest 
pariah looked for the beneficent Avatar. The norse- 
man Scald chaunted the return of the runic Balder. 
Orphic utterances* foretold the advent of one whose 
attributes were hymned, as in words of Holy Writ. 
Uninspired poetry became vaticinian. The traditions 
of humanity looked for its apotheosis : — but this is 
matter for other argument. At present it is sufficient 
to appeal to the invariable repetition of merely natu- 
ral exploit, to show, (with some degree of probability 
at least) that there is only an expansion of every 
truth which is in Time. The stream may be coloured 
by the skies it flows to, or may urge a lordly flood 
nearing the illimitable sea, but it is unchanged, the 
same element as at its source. 

Surrender, however, these conclusions from the 
philosophy of history ; reject either the logic or its 
deductions. It is still impossible to deny the fact of 
the gradual amelioration of government. It is as 
impossible to deny the remoteness of this tendency. 
The medals of creation attest a mysterious progression 
in the material world : so also in the realm of civili- 
zation. Types of former liberty are scattered, like 
fossils over the present age. The isles of Ulysses 
/preserve a Greek name of liberty ; the gorgeous com- 
; monwealths of Italy are represented by the oldest 
T republic on earth ; the sober, wealthy and puissant 

* I do not J of course, mean the neo-platonic forgeries. 



8 ORATION. 

Hansa is not totally extinct, the four great merchant 
cities of northern Europe are yet hanseatic freetowns ; 
and the green slope of Ruetli is laved to-day by its 
unsullied lake and guarded by insubjugate Alps, lift- 
ing their snowy pinacles into the blue sky domed 
above a land free now as in the days of Tell. 

Antiquity so attested, is simply human nature. 
Resistance to tyranny is .as old as usurpation. Fland- 
ers can tell of her Gueux ; France of her Jacquerie ; 
Germany of her Bauernkrieg j Italy, Poland, Spain, 
Hungary, — wherever oppression has been, revolution 
has followed. By these very disturbances we per- 
ceive the gradual advance of Man : for in that line no 
point can be determined, save by an intersection of 
the quiet continuous flow. 

In this manner, after the upheaval of the middle 
ages, we follow an almost direct succession of revolu- 
tions, from the turmoils of Italy ; which ceasing appa- 
rently in the elevation of magnificent families were to 
cause through their expenditures and necessities, 
transalpine discords kindling the fires of religious 
war ; the embers of which went out in the carnage of 
the thirty years. Principles successful in that dread- 
ful contest created an interregnum in the royalty of 
England ; during which pause, ideas were transplanted 
proving the germ of our revolution, that in its turn 
became the stock of countless recent offshoots. 

Through every struggle one eminent principle is 
growing and strengthening, that government is for the 



ORATION. 9 

governed and tlic best means tliereunto, self-govern- 
ment. This is in fact the entire conrse of nniversal 
history : at first the record of families ; then of cities ; 
then of nations; and lastly incorporated on a wider 
scale, of confederacies. In short, government departs 
more and more from the rnle of one or few, to that 
of many. 

This divergence towards union is controlled so as 
favour liberty. The most superficial examination of 
national peculiarities in ofi&ce shows how it is tem- 
pered. Thus for example : the teutonic trait of 
separatism, the very definition of liberty, has kept pace 
with this federative tendency, in opposition to cen- 
tralization. It was such sectionalism that garnered in 
its arctic home was republican before ever the pelas- 
gic or etruscan state-craft, was venerable before Ro- 
man secessions, had been forgotten ages anterior to 
Nullification. It was such influence that bursting* 
southward with the migration of polar hordes, retraced 
its steps, following their victorious march, instituting 
the innumerable fiefs of the empire, and as a necessary 
consequence, a peculiar code, which, demanded by 
a new social phase, was like that, to terminate in un- 
foreseen franchises. 

These ancient ideas moving towards self-govern- 
ment, became at last no longer theories expressed only 
in defeat, but triumphant realities. The revolution 
which established them, w^ich digested every princi- 
ple of freedom however received from divided ages 
2 



10 ORATION. 

or countries, that revolution was the one this day 
commemorates. Even waiving its succession if dis- 
puted, it is unquestionable that all that has been since 
done for liberty is consequential on it. What has 
followed the revolution of this country? It were 
impossible to trace the concessions to each stormy 
demand of 1789, 1813, 1820, 1830 and 1848; but 
look at the results. South America wholly independ- 
ent, almost entirely republican. Throughout Western 
Europe, trial by jury, abolition of the censorship, 
written constitutions and representative governments. 

I know that the pyrrhonist will point to France. 
Even there is not the contrast of 1789 and 1848 im- 
mense ? Even there is not her ruler, the citizen mon- 
arch ? What matters a name ? Any title uttered by 
the voice of the people is republican enough. But 
let the worst be true. Let beautiful France be be- 
trayed, and let the ship of state go down. As the 
waves close over the free tri-colour, "live the Repub- 
lic " will burst from the foam that surges over heroes.* 
Though France be no more the banner-state of free- 
dom, her martyr-fate may nerve nations yet to issue 
from the slough of despotism. 

Scan the entire horizon. There is no Christian 
people that does not now possess privileges which 
were Utopian to a generation not quite passed away. 

Nor is it solely civilization that responds. The 
standard of man has been elevated in its most animal 

""Le Vengeur, 2nd June, 1794. 



ORATION. 11 

appearance. The hardly human African has been 
rendered a useful denizen of earth, and has attained 
with us to a higher cultivation than elsewhere, with 
an admission to personal securities unknown to his 
barbarous state of nature. Even the utter darkness 
of his home is penetrated only by our enlightenment ; 
for the glare in Algiers and at the cape is the confla- 
gration of exterminating war. Look farther also to 
the effete elder Asia. Even there American influence 
is at work, and taught by its missionary zeal, one-third 
of the world's inhabitants is learning the force of^ 
popular will. 

The mighty message of another time has imprinted 
its traces not only on the stable land, but even on the 
turbulent deep. There is no sea-rocked isle whose 
shores have not been pressed by the feet of our bear- 
ers of glad tidings. Voices have reached us from 
nations born in a day, asking admission to our union ; 
the traditional seclusion of an ocean empire has opened 
to envoys from its youngest compeer in the brother- 
hood of Man. 

All this is virtue which has proceeded from us ; but 
if we use a nearer examination, signs of similar 
progress are abundant. Republican commerce has 
girdled earth with its liberal cestus ; republican inge- 
nuity has rendered obselete the former tactics of 
marine war, and has thus most effectually emancipa- 
ted the sea from the dominion of that naval isle so 



12 ORATION. 

long admiral among nations; republican generosity 
opens an asylum for pilgrims of every purpose ; re- 
publican valour makes good tlie safeguard. 

Such is tlie appearance of our country on this anni- 
versary. National vanity too often indulges in the 
easy eulogium of self-laudation, but it is none such to 
take this view of progress. Our part is universally 
recognised whatever cavil be made to its performance. 
The attributes of commission stand forth in bold 
outline : the remote prophecies which foretold the 
h appearance of transatlantic fortunate abodes ; the 
coincidences of the discovery which married our vir- 
gin country to civilization rij)ening into vigour ; the 
fatidical idea which accompanies our nation in its very 
infancy — a circumstance occurring but once before in 
history ; the chain of events which separated our con- 
tinent from dependance, linking its emancipation to 
those of the past, as a summary of their principles. 
All these are lesser indications than the achievements 
of scarce three score years. If such be not ornate 
signs of destiny, history must be written again. Its 
teachings affirm the probability of our mission ; and 
that there is such a task of emancipation to be per- 
formed is evidenced by the expectation of the past, 
and the earnest looking forward of the present : for 
the dream of republicanism has now gone up before 
the world, and there is no noble nor unselfish heart 
that does not throb in unison with its harmony, the 



ORATION. 13 

prolusion of that sublime concord which is the song 
of the new earth — the song of the Liberator and the 
Redeemer. 

It seemed to me that looking upon the international 
moment of to-day was to occupy its highest stand- 
point. This morning, the roar of cannon on our long 
drawn coast, spoke not more loudly to the ocean's 
thunder than does a multitudinous welcome to the 
tread and hum of the van of nations sounding on our 
shore. Dawn could kindle no sublimer symphony. 

Nevertheless, error too often guides speculation for 
me to insist upon any position, I have taken. I am 
willing to retire from all. This much, however, may 
be admitted that to-day is one of gratulation to our 
own people. Years ago I stood on an outlyer of 
the Harz. Widespread fields lay beneath, through 
whose verdant and gently undulating surface a river 
sparkled like a silver thread. Some thirty or forty 
villages were scattered in the peaceful valley, while 
the venerable towers of a university town gave dig- 
nity to the repose of the scene. But evening drew 
on, and the landscape lost its brighter hues in the gray 
tints of twilight, as the sun began slowly to sink be- 
hind the opposite mountains. I stood with country- 
men, and gazing on that setting sun, we knew that it 
went to give light to our own land and hailed the 
omen ; that as time to Europe already past, to Ameri- 
ca was yet to come, so that although all in the aged 



14 ORATION. 

hemisphere grew dark and yet more dark, on the 
young republic would pour an ever waxing glory. 

Thoughts such as these suit occasions like to-day's, 
but there are ghostly emotions which rise at the most 
festive scenes and will not down. It is true, mankind 
has advanced ; but the epicycle of universal history 
is generated by the circles within which each indi- 
vidual nation has returned to its starting point. It is 
true, our short period has been heroic, but its brief 
annals are sybilline with foreboding. Not one cen- 
tury has enivied the federal temple, and storms have 
rocked it to the base. True, it has withstood that 
violence and risen grandly and massively in towering 
proportion ; but the inexorable influence may under- 
mine it, which accompanies success : that very ponder- 
ous height may be the natural overthrow. It is true, 
an aurora empurples our western seas ; but perchance 
this rosy light in the reddening west, reflects not the 
breaking of another, brighter day, and is only that 
evening glow, which flushes, as if in excess of sorrow 
over a departing luminary, in whose waning rays the 
splendour of morn and noon expires. And be it so. 
When the dying day gathers up its imperial glories, 
with that superb valediction, fires are disclosed, 
gleaming in higher heavens ; and the stars, that blaze 
forth, when sunset yields to the illumination of night, 
are spheres whose choral woke at creation the prelude 
to a lofty epiphany outshining sun and moon. Thus 



ORATION. 15 

be it. If the hopes of humanity are to fade and 
disappear in this last experiment of man, the shadow 
that deepens must be one which 

" Shall close the drama with the day." 

The unknown hour will then have come, when a 
perfect and enduring liberty shall steal upon the world 
in its ultimate Night. 



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